My new house was a relatively quiet one. The only mouth that spoke there was the head of the family. He speaks all the time and when everywhere was quiet, you knew he wasn’t around.

It was a house of a man, his wife, a little boy (his nephew) and a teenager ( his niece).

Initially I didn’t know who was who. But a closer study of their interactions revealed their identities.

I could not speak their language. But I paid attention to words they frequently used and soon, I could guess their meanings based on the regular contexts.

For instance “dabali” was food. And when I heard “dabali” and my name in whatever sentence they were constructing, I knew it had something to do with my food. And I was always right. For soon, the teenager was at my door.

“Patrick, mama says you should come for your food.” She says.

“OK. Thank you.” my usual answer.

She calls the man “Uncle”. That was how I knew she was his niece.

The little boy was seven years whereas the man had only been married for three years. I saw the day they got married on their wedding photos in the living room.

The boy was dark. The woman, naturally fair. The man, very dark. My conclusions: not his son.

And later events revealed my guess was right.

So, the man and his wife were without child. He was a priest. He was an extrovert, an extreme one, and his wife, very quiet. She was fair and tall, he was short, dark. I once heard him saying one must marry one’s complete opposite, and I wondered if according to him that was the only basis for choosing a life partner.

I wasn’t given much information about my host family before I moved in to stay with them. I had to gather as much info as possible on the ground. They were sometimes a mystery and the more information I unraveled, the better my chances of remaining sane in that house.

From their conversations, I overheard that the man’s sister was to join them in a couple of months. I was mostly in my room, with my books. I tried to imagine how the man’s sister  looked.

Young? Old? Beautiful or homely face? Will she make a great companion in that lonely house? I heard her name in one of their conversations. Diana. And I kept the name.

The teenager was the kindest of them all. She gave me enough food and was always polite. The boy was mean and bossy, and very rude. He liked to invade my privacy.

The man was always complaining. He says I was too quiet. I needed to learn socializing skills and not keep things to myself. In his head, my quiet nature was a disease that needed a cure. He was determined to be the first to make a breakthrough in that field. And I was determined to prove to him that when the letters in my name Patrick were rearrange, the new word formed was STUBBORN.

I noticed the quantity of food I was served each day dwindled as I refused to fit into their definition of a good child: a doormat.

It made my academic progress at school a difficult climb. I liked food and ate a lot because I worked a lot. With no money of my own and living with a family that  began maltreating me, my chances of passing my final exams were now dim and grim.